Kiss Me Hello (Sweetest Kisses) (31 page)

She’d further explained—Miss Amy was apparently fond of the sound of her own explanations—that Luis’s attorney, whose name had escaped her, would advocate for his interests before the judge. Luis was not to worry. His attorney would be certain to be present the day of court.

“Sometimes,” Miss Amy had said, “the Department’s hands are tied, and the regulations leave us no options.”

Then she’d taken his damned picture, switched off her SmartPad, and left.

She wasn’t even nice. Most of Luis’s workers had been at least superficially nice, many of them more than that. They tried their best to make a complicated, unwieldy system do handsprings, and it wasn’t their fault the results were disappointing.

“You made brownies for a legal meeting?” Luis asked Sid as she took the pan out of the oven.

“Double batch, considering who’s coming over. Anything you want to say to me before they arrive?”

I
love
you.
Except admitting that smarmy crap now would just make Sid cry, and that would make Luis crazy.

She was smart, Sid was. She didn’t turn and spear him with her mama-eyed lightsaber, she kept puttering in the big kitchen, making a racket with the bowl and spoons she’d used to put together the brownie batter.

“I don’t want to leave here. I don’t want to leave you.”

She did turn then, draped a dish towel over her shoulder, and crossed her arms as she leaned back against the counter.

“You know I love you, Weese?”

“I know that. You should be more careful who you love, but I know you love me.” And leaving Sid would ruin him
and
his chances for a decent future. Luis knew that too. Sid talked about college like that was just the next thing on the list.

“If you want to go to damned Baltimore,” she said, “I’ll drive you there. I’ll pack your stuff and call DSS myself, if it’s what you want.”

Damn her and her mama-bear bravery. “I don’t want to go to Baltimore.” Luis hadn’t meant to raise his voice.

She folded the towel over her shoulder, as if it were some kind of fashion accessory.

“OK, so you want to stay with me, but you don’t want me to adopt you. One measly little adoption, my friend, and they couldn’t do this to you anymore.”

“I know that too. Just lay off, would you? I’m going to check on the horses.”

Luis left the kitchen at a near run, letting the screen door slam, though he knew it drove Sid nuts. He was already in tears by the time he buried his face against Buttercup’s coarse, stinky mane.

* * *

“The Department isn’t wrong,” Trenton Knightley said.

If his tone were any more reasonable, Sid would have to choke him. The kitchen bore the lovely scent of fresh-baked brownies, some fool bird was chirping madly out in the oak tree, and Sid was contemplating lawyer-cide.

Not for the first time.

“Viewed from one perspective,” Trent went on, “if Luis were placed closer to his sisters, that would be less restrictive. The Baltimore court would have considered that before they sent Luis out here with Sid, though, and the Baltimore judge decided continuity of placement was more important than visits Luis wasn’t even getting.”

“Sid would haul him to those visits if DSS set them up, I’m sure.” The comment came from James, who sat on one side of Sid at the kitchen table. Hannah sat on the other, which meant Sid was across from Mac, Luis, and Trent. Vera, may the woman be canonized, had volunteered to look after Grace and Merle.

“I got Luis to every visit that was scheduled,” Sid said. “When Luis and his sisters were in the same jurisdiction, their respective workers could coordinate visits, though the other foster parents had endless excuses. This week it was a cold, the next week it was a dress rehearsal for the first-grade play. Always something.”

While Luis had stopped asking if he could even call his sisters. Both girls apparently took the world’s longest showers, then went immediately to sleep. Every single night.

“I can hammer on the fact that the visits haven’t been set up since Luis got here,” Trent said, choosing a brownie from the stack on the plate in the center of the table. “I can make the point that the local Department has dropped that ball miserably.”

“And you’ll lose,” Mac retorted. “The Department will apologize heartily, and point out that you’ve made their case for them. The visits were easier to schedule when Luis was in the same jurisdiction as his sisters. Brian Patlack isn’t stupid.”

“Who’s he?” Luis asked around a mouthful of brownie.

“The attorney for DSS,” Trent said. “If he knows he has a contested case on his hands, he’ll sometimes try to reason with his client until a compromise can be hammered out, but he’s out of town all week at some golf tournament. I’m striking out with Ms. Snyder’s supervisor, as well, because he’s at an off-site training.”

Worse and worse. The half mug of milk Sid had managed wasn’t agreeing with her at all.

“If it’s any comfort,” James said, “nobody at DSS likes Amy Snyder. My contacts there are reasonably professional, but some of them go back a few years, and every single one of them gets that pissy, oh-her tone of voice when I mention Amy’s name. She’s not a team player, won’t take the hard cases, and seems to have her supervisor wrapped around her finger. One of the ladies hinted Amy’s uncle is close to the governor.”

The
governor
. Sid could not bear to meet Luis’s eyes when James had shared that cheering tidbit.

“Did you get the sense she cuts corners, James?” Hannah asked.

“I can answer that,” Luis said, balling up his napkin and lobbing it into the trash. “Amy Snyder loves the rules, and they are more important to her than what’s right. She wins if the rules are obeyed, and if the rules are contradictory, like the best interests of the child, meaning I’d stay, while some other rule means I’d go, she gets mad. She hates it.”

Hatred, a fine quality in a child welfare worker.

“I agree with Luis,” Sid said. “He’s pegged her accurately. Amy isn’t confused or bewildered by conflicting guidance, she’s
pissed
. Insulted, peeved, affronted that she should have to deal with untidiness. Luis and I are square pegs to her, and the right outcome is for Baltimore to solve the problem that Baltimore created.”

James pushed the plate of brownies at her—a considerably less full plate of brownies than it had been at the start of the meeting.

“Why are you square pegs?” he asked.

When had they ever been anything else? “Because Luis doesn’t want to be adopted, he doesn’t have relatives who can take him in, and he isn’t clamoring to be emancipated.”

“That’s an option,” Mac said. “The judge can spring him, turn him loose by court order, make him an underage adult, and then Luis is free to do whatever he wants.”

Trent dipped his brownie in a glass of milk and took a considering nibble. “Judge Stevens won’t spring a sixteen-year-old new to the area who has no money in the bank, no family around here, no place to stay outside a licensed foster home, no plan for how he’ll complete his education.”

“I have a trust fund,” Luis said. “That might count for something.”

The four—count ’em!—attorneys at the table exchanged glances. Four of them, and still they’d be unlikely to convince a judge to set aside the Department’s plan.

“You haven’t seen a nickel of that trust,” Mac said. He’d not touched the brownies. “But the fund is another reason to leave you with Sid, because she’s the trustee. Much easier for her to disburse the funds to you if you’re living under her roof.”

Excellent notion, though still probably not excellent enough.

They batted ideas around until the brownies were nearly gone and Luis was discreetly yawning behind his hand.

“I’m going to turn out the girls for the night.” Luis said.

James got to his feet. “I’ll go with you. Moon should be coming up soon, and it’s a pretty night. Sid, try not to worry. If the judge wants to know where Luis will stay when he’s emancipated, he can stay with us. Be convenient to his summer job, and Twyla would adore him.”

“He could stay with us too,” Hannah said. “Grace has asked me more than once for a big brother.”

“Or there’s my place,” Mac said, staring at the few remaining brownies. “Kid could put that pool table to some use.”

“You’d take him in, just like that?” Sid asked.

“Why not?” Trent replied. “You did.”

Sid sat back, swallowing hard, saying not one word as Trent and Mac left the kitchen behind James. Hannah patted her shoulder and rose, taking the brownie plate to the counter.

“Something puzzles me,” Hannah said.

While Sid was tied completely in knots. “That would be?”

“Where is your foster care worker in all this? And where’s your plastic wrap?”

“You mean Amy? She’s all too apparently running the damned show. The plastic wrap is in the drawer beside the sink.”

“No,
your
worker. Every licensed home has a worker whose job is to look after the foster families, not the foster kids. They handle the things that relate to licensure, they stay in touch with the families as a kind of support chain, and they visit from time to time regardless of which children you’re fostering.”

While Hannah covered the brownies, Sid cast back, recalling a few such visits from pleasant, harried ladies, and the occasional guy. They had a fancy name—service home foster care liaison, something like that.

“Maybe I haven’t been assigned one yet.” Now, when the brownies had been put away, Sid abruptly craved one—and more milk.

Hannah stashed the plastic wrap, which was running low, back in the drawer. “If Amy cast doubt on your license, then your worker should have been immediately involved.”

“Amy said she didn’t have all the signatures on the paperwork. Maybe my worker is on vacation, or is the reason Amy’s plans didn’t bear fruit.”

Hannah wrung out a rag and began wiping the table. “I’ll mention it to Trent. Good brownies. Is it Vera’s recipe?”

“It is. I cannot believe I’m sitting on my backside while you clean up in my kitchen.” Sid got up, intent on putting the milk jug back in the fridge.

“I’m buttering you up,” Hannah said. “Now isn’t the time to ask, but school will be out soon, and there’s no good time: Will you watch my daughters this summer? They love it here, and you’re a child care professional.”

Ambushed. Sid set the milk jug—also considerably lightened—on the counter. “You hardly know me, and I’m not a licensed day care mom.”

“You have time to get a license, and Mac vouches for you. Vera will ask you to keep Twy as well, so get your acceptance speech ready.”

Sid added milk and plastic wrap to the grocery list she kept on a pad by the kitchen phone.

“What about my you-do-me-great-honor speech?” she asked. “I’ve always steered clear of the little kids, or I did after the first year.”

“Why?”

Beneath the last items on the grocery list, Sid scrawled the word “miracle.” They might have a spare one of those at the feed store, right?

“The big kids need the love more,” Sid said. “The little guys can cute their way right into anybody’s heart, but the big kids are special. I genuinely like them, and they seem to appreciate it.”

Hannah hugged her, a good solid, comforting hug that had tears pricking the backs of Sid’s eyes.

“You’re the foster mom I should have had,” Hannah said. “Don’t worry about Luis. If anybody can keep that kid under your roof, it’s Mac, Trent, and James.”

From whom Sid had scorned to accept a job.

Hannah gave Sid’s hand a pat, and called out to her husband, who’d taken Mac—or been dragged by Mac—out to the porch.

Sid found James and Trent sitting on the swing when she and Hannah left the kitchen.

“Mac’s visiting his girls,” James said. “Probably giving Luis a pep talk.”

“While you two do what?” Hannah asked, wedging herself between them.

“We’re reminiscing.” Trent looped an arm around his wife’s shoulders. “It’s good to see the place looking cared for again. Our mom used to have good luck with geraniums around the porch, but the petunias smell better.”

“Mom had a green thumb.” James rose from the swing and propped a hip on the porch railing.

Trent didn’t answer, leaving Sid to wonder what it would be like to have family like this. Family that shared memories both sweet and sad, who came together to support each other, who comforted one another through life’s worst hurts and difficulties.

Across the yard, Mac and Luis emerged from the barn, walking side by side. Mac was talking, Luis was listening, nodding, then Mac stopped with a hand on Luis’s shoulder.

Luis shook his head emphatically, the night breezes carrying the words away. Mac pulled Luis in for a hug, probably intending a brief, backslapping man-hug, but Luis lashed his arms around Mac’s waist and dropped his forehead to Mac’s shoulder.

“Let’s go inside.” James kept his voice down and held the door for Sid, while Trent brought up the rear.

“We weren’t supposed to see that,” Sid said. “I’m glad Luis is willing to lean on somebody.” He’d never hugged Sid like that, though.

Trent tousled her hair. “You might give it a try yourself sometime.” His tone was teasing, but Sid felt chastised and un-huggable.

“If having the four of you collaborate on Luis’s case doesn’t constitute leaning, I don’t know what would.”

James’s arm settled on her shoulders. “Give it some thought. You’re a bright lady. Some good ideas about this leaning business might come to you. They’ve finally arrived to MacKenzie’s stubborn way of thinking, so there has to be hope for you.”

He bussed her cheek, which from him was endearing. He smelled good, a little cedary with undertones of smoke and spice, though Mac’s cinnamon-and-clove fragrance had more appeal.

Mac, who was out in the moonlight comforting the kid Sid would not be allowed to adopt.

Much less raise.

* * *

“I wonder if he’s able to sleep, when tomorrow might be the last night he spends under this roof?”

Sid’s voice held such an aching load of misery, Mac took the risk of putting an arm around her. She’d been quiet all evening, and watchful, focused mostly on Luis.